THE BEAST OF BOGGY CREEK: The True Story of the Fouke Monster (17 page)

One-Sheet Poster painted by Ralph McQuarrie.

Creature From Black Lake

The success generated by
The Legend of Boggy Creek
was not lost on other filmmakers, most notably a father and son team out of Shreveport, Louisiana, by the name of McCullough. The team consisted of writer/actor Jim McCullough, Jr., and his father, Jim McCullough, Sr., who had co-produced a 1974 film adaptation of
Where the Red Fern Grows
. Influenced by the Fouke Monster and other hairy cryptids such as the “Caddo Critter”—another large, ape-like creature said to inhabit the Caddo Lake area—the McCulloughs set out to create their own entry, a film known as
Creature From Black Lake
.

A standout among the classic “Bigfoot horrors,” the film was written by McCullough Jr. and made possible by his father’s company, the aptly named Jim McCullough Productions. Like Pierce, McCullough teamed up with low-budget distributor Howco International Pictures, and even went so far as to bring in Joy N. Houck, Jr.—son of Howco’s president, Joy Houck, Sr.—as director. This double dose of nepotism might seem like little more than a ploy to keep a few untalented offspring busy, but such is not the case. Both Houck, Jr., and McCullough, Jr., do a fine job creating a memorable film that further contributed to the reputation of Southern swamp monsters.

Caddo Lake with cypress trees and Spanish moss.
(Photo by the author)

Although
Creature From Black Lake
is a much more conventional movie than
The Legend of Boggy Creek
in that it doesn’t use a narrated docudrama approach, it still makes excellent use of local legends and real life set locations that can be linked to similar “monster” sightings. While McCullough Jr.’s script is purely fictional, local legends of mysterious creatures, including those of the Fouke Monster, must have served as inspiration.

The story is set in the real town of Oil City, Louisiana, which is roughly 120 miles south of Fouke near the east side of Caddo Lake. Like Fouke, Oil City is basically a one-horse town located near a suitable swamp where hairy monsters are seen on occasion. The movie’s title was presumably taken from Black Bayou Lake, a smaller body of water located to the north, although principle filming of the swamp scenes was actually done in the hauntingly picturesque setting of Caddo Lake.

The unique features of Caddo Lake make it an ideal location for a monster flick, and no doubt
Creature From Black Lake
benefits greatly from its spooky beauty. Everywhere you look, sinewy cypress trees rise from the water and stand like grim sentries around the shoreline. Each one is draped in a gray shawl of Spanish moss to give it an ancient and menacing ambiance. Like Mercer Bayou in Arkansas where Pierce captured amazing shots for his movie, the internationally protected wetlands surrounding Caddo offered a similar backdrop of monstrous style for Houck and McCullough.

According to the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy, one of the regional groups dedicated to the research and discovery of the animal known as Sasquatch, the areas surrounding the lake have been the scene of dozens of Bigfoot sightings since 1965. So it would seem that art is imitating life in
Creature From Black Lake
, or perhaps it’s the other way around. Whatever the case, the location seems to lend a bit of authenticity to the film, ultimately resulting in an entertaining ride despite the film’s low budget.

The success of
Creature From Black Lake
was nowhere near that of Pierce’s seminal effort, but nonetheless it stands today as a good entry into the Bigfoot film cannon and in some ways helped stoke the fire started by the Fouke Monster five years earlier.

Lasting Influence

The phenomenon generated by Pierce’s homemade film has rarely been repeated in the history of celluloid horror. In fact, only a handful of these DIY movies have been able to equal the level of fear feedback and box office returns enjoyed by
The Legend of Boggy Creek
during its prime. The two best examples are
Blair Witch Project
(1999) and
Paranormal Activity
(2007), both of which managed to achieve major success despite their lowbrow production values.

Blair Witch Project
was actually heavily inspired by the
Boggy Creek
movie. In a 1999 interview with
The Tulsa World
,
Blair Witch Project
co-director Daniel Myrick stated: “We just wanted to make a movie that tapped into the primal fear generated by the fact-or-fiction format, like [
The
]
Legend of Boggy Creek
.”

I can remember the buzz when
Blair Witch Project
hit the theaters. Like
The Legend of Boggy Creek
, moviegoers were quick to buy into the realism conveyed by the shaky, handheld camera and improv scripting. It was the early days of reality television and the point-of-view camera channeled the character’s fear straight from the screen to the audience with fantastic results. The “monster” of the film (the presumed ghost of the Blair Witch) is even more shadowy and elusive than the one that stalks Boggy Creek, allowing it to creep more effectively into the sophisticated psyche of modern horror fans. Like Pierce, the directors managed to blur the lines between reality and cinema, resulting in a huge box office draw and ultimate success.

More modern ghostbuster creep-outs such as
Paranormal Activity
(2007) and its sequels use a similar docudrama style, stripping it down even more to a level of stark reality. Made on a shoe-string budget and filmed with a home video camera,
Paranormal Activity
explores the universal fear of ghosts, house hauntings, and the vulnerability one can experience while sleeping. Once again, the result was an unanticipated level of success with worldwide distribution and sequel deals reminiscent of
The Legend of Boggy Creek
. And the similarities don’t stop there. Just as
The Legend of Boggy Creek
incited monster hunters to take to the woods with guns, this modern ghostly counterpart helped push a wave of ghost hunters into old buildings with EMF detectors, proving that real life creepies often strike the most resonate chord within our primal psyche.

Another homegrown indie that pays homage to Pierce is the 2009 film,
The Wild Man of the Navidad
. Directed by two Austin-based filmmakers, Duane Graves and Justin Meeks, this tale evokes
The Legend of Boggy Creek
in both style and subject matter.

“
Boggy Creek
was a huge influence when we were developing
The Wild Man of the Navidad
,” director Duane Graves told me as we discussed our mutual love of the film. “We wanted to do the same for our part of Texas as it did for Fouke, and make the Wild Man a character of the movie as much as the region itself. That’s the main reason we decided to use real life residents of the area…”

Watching
The Wild Man of the Navidad
, it’s clear that the directors meant it to be a tribute to Pierce. “Several visual homages and verbal nods to
Boggy Creek
appear in the finished product,” said Graves. “It was definitely something we wanted to display proudly when making the film. We even spoke with Pierce several times in hopes of bringing him aboard as a producer of the project, but he was more interested in directing it.” According to co-director Justin Meeks, they talked to Pierce at least a dozen times on the phone. “He was thrilled we were continuing to spread the word about the possibility of a Sasquatch,” Meeks told me. One wonders how Pierce might have contributed to the film, but the young directors do a fine job with their own Texas legend.

It is worth noting that Pierce came to believe in the possibility that Sasquatch-like creatures, such as the Fouke Monster, may exist. Not only is this point conveyed by Meeks’ conversations with the director, but more directly, Pierce’s daughter told me that, based on comments he had made to his family and others, she had no doubt he believed in the creature.

One-Sheet Poster painted by Ralph McQuarrie.

A final interesting note regarding the legacy of
The Legend of Boggy Creek
is associated with its eye-catching movie poster. The simple, yet striking, image of the creature as it is coming across the swamp has become the iconic image of the Fouke Monster. It was painted by none other than Ralph McQuarrie. Though not a household name, McQuarrie’s fantastic imagery is known worldwide. McQuarrie also painted the posters for many of Pierce’s subsequent movies, including
Boggy Creek II
,
Bootleggers
,
The Town That Dreaded Sundown
,
Winds of Autumn
, and
Winterhawk
. And he created the memorable poster for
Creature From Black Lake
. These are all great works, but they are not McQuarrie’s most notable achievements. What most people don’t realize is that McQuarrie designed many of George Lucas’ classic Star Wars characters, including Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Yoda, Boba Fett, the stormtroopers, and others. He also painted various concepts for the film’s sets, including R2-D2 and C3PO’s arrival on Tatooine, the Jawas, and many of the Deathstar sequences. McQuarrie’s fantastic design work, in fact, helped convince 20th Century Fox to initially fund Star Wars.

I had the good fortune of conducting an interview with McQuarrie in regard to his work with Pierce. He told me that they were introduced by a mutual acquaintance during the final phases of the film. Although McQuarrie had never done a movie poster before, he was already a successful graphic illustrator. As a graphic designer himself, Pierce recognized McQuarrie’s talents and left the job in his capable hands. “He came over to my studio and we talked about the movie,” McQuarrie told me. “I came up with the design of the movie poster, he liked it and that was that.”